Missouri AG’s office had invite to Jan. 5 conference call by group urging Capitol march
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s office had an invitation to a conference call the day before the deadly Capitol riot with a Republican group that deployed a robocall urging people to march to the building.
Peter Bisbee, executive director of the Rule of Law Defense Fund — an arm of the Republican Attorneys General Association — circulated call-in information for a gathering of state attorneys general senior staff on Jan. 5. The call was one in a series of meetings held for staff in the months before and after the election.
Missouri attorneys Mark Pedroli and Elad Gross, a former Democratic candidate for attorney general, released the emails Tuesday after obtaining them through a records request. The emails show planning for dozens of meetings between July and January, including “war games” held by senior attorneys general staff.
“32 AG staff members are huddled in Atlanta for a series of conversations planning for what could come if we lose the White House,” Adam Piper, the then-executive director of RAGA, wrote on Sept. 24.
Republican attorneys general, including Schmitt and Derek Schmidt in Kansas, have faced heavy criticism for fueling perceptions that Trump could overturn the results of the election after it became clear in November that Biden had won. Both officials backed a doomed lawsuit that sought to block Biden’s victory in key swing states.
The RLDF also launched a robocall asking people to march to the Capitol on Jan. 6, when Congress would be gathering to certify the electoral college results. After a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol, Piper resigned and attorneys general have moved to distance themselves from the insurrection.
Schmitt spokesman Chris Nuelle said Tuesday the robocall wasn’t discussed in any of the contacts with the attorney general’s office contained in the emails, which were first reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. He reiterated a previous statement that Schmitt had no knowledge of the robocall.
“RLDF is a policy organization, and as you can expect, we collaborate with other Republican attorneys general offices on matters of policy, sign on opportunities, and potential lawsuits, just as we do with broader organizations like the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG),” Nuelle said in an email.
A RAGA spokesperson declined to comment.
Take Back Missouri, a group that advocates against dark money in politics, released a report based on the emails. It said the records show “further investigation is needed into whether state employees misappropriated state resources for political purposes and whether Attorneys General violated election laws regarding illegal campaign coordination.” The report was prepared by Gross, who lost the Democratic primary for attorney general in 2020.
The 90 pages of emails turned over to Gross and Pedroli document regular calls held by the RLDF for attorneys general staff. The emails don’t provide much detail on the contents of most of those calls.
On Jan. 4, Bisbee sent an email announcing a call for senior staff the next day and another on Jan. 7. The recipients aren’t clear from the records. “Please let me know if you have any items for the agenda,” Bisbee wrote.
But the records also show RAGA’s efforts in the lead-up to the election.
On Sept. 19, the day after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, Piper sent an email with the salutation “Generals” telling recipients to be prepared for the Trump campaign to ask them to be surrogates during the upcoming presidential debates.
Piper also wrote that RAGA was doing well in all of the attorney general races where Republicans currently held office, adding that “the landscape will shift (hopefully for the better) after last night’s news.” He noted in the email that Schmitt “remains in a very strong position.”
Then, on Sept. 26, the day Trump announced his nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court, Piper sent another email. It began, “Generals - Happy Game Day for America.”
This story was originally published February 23, 2021 at 5:36 PM.
